Megan Quinn: Faith groups hungering to become food activists

As their congregations harvest the last of the crops from their community gardens, faith-based groups are beginning to look outside their garden plots and toward the future of food sustainability.

A group of congregations, including members of the Christian, Buddhist, Jewish and Muslim faiths in Boulder and Colorado's 2nd Congressional District, will meet this weekend with U.S. Rep. Jared Polis to discuss their roles in food sustainability and activism as it pertains to healthy food initiatives.

The Inter-Faith Coalition for Food Sustainability (IFCFS) is meant to be a centralized communication hub where congregations can share information and resources. The IFCFS will conduct group meetings to discuss gardening and farming tips, the spiritual side of growing and nurturing food and how congregations can pool resources to create more sustainable church gardens or programs to help the community gain access to fresh, local food.

Prescott Knock, executive director of the Buddhist Coalition for Bodhisattva Activity, said IFCFS is an important means to work on community projects in conjunction with other interfaith groups. It is also a way to plug into the regional policy-making process.

By getting different groups to one table, conversations can turn into action, Knock said. About seven different religious groups are currently represented by IFCFS, and Knock expects more to join.

The group "is very grassroots, but it's also supported top-down by the congressman," he said.

All the congregations involved already have melded either gardens, green activism groups or environmental stewardship into their religious traditions, he said.

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This weekend's discussion -- it also will include a "harvest table" potluck of garden-grown food and other items -- aims to be a balance of promoting activism, honoring spirituality and finding ways to weight in with local government on food issues that affect everyone, not just faith communities.

Chris Fitzgerald, a spokesman for Polis, said the partnership aligns well with the congressman's existing policy efforts.

This weekend's meeting, a private gathering at a Boulder church, "grew out of Congressman Polis' interest in the sustainability and safety of our food supply and, specifically, the debate over genetically modified organisms (GMO)," Fitzgerald said. "Many faiths also have scriptural precedent for being involved in encouraging healthy, sustainable food, and they have been informally meeting to discuss the issues for some time. Jared has been very active in national policy in this area."

Knock said the IFCFS reminds him of the concept of the Grange, when farmers came together to discuss agricultural and community issues. Though the Grange is not a big part of modern life in the area, the interfaith group aims to offer similar discussions.

"For faith communities with gardens or farms or who are considering adding these things . . . we want a place to have this larger conversation," he said.

Though this is one of the first IFCFS meetings, Knock said the group already is considering future collaborations. Some churches, synagogues and temples have worked together on projects in the past.

Members are considering putting together a directory of faith-based organic farms and gardens, discussing GMO labeling issues and creating a website with agricultural and gardening focuses for congregations. Knock expects there might also be some recipe swapping, sharing of gardening tools and discussion about how gardens enrich congregations and their communities.

Yet the conversations are ongoing, and Knock expects plenty of new ideas to come up during the meeting with Polis.

"We want to see what people are interested in and go from there," he said.

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